OzzyShiraz

The main street which ringed the Jump Tower began to get ridiculous with tourists, and since the Station had drifted into Free Zone the carnival springing up was no family affair. Free Zone can be a paradise or a nightmare, depending on one´s company, surroundings, and disposition; Nodnol´s straightforward legal policies tend to attract the adventurous, excitable, radical, and desperate.

¨I can´t tell who´s naked and who´s just...¨ Bucko watched a podopoid -- obviously off it´s rocker already -- half slither half flail along the ground, ¨...unfortunate.¨

Boyo practically tripped in front of him, slight confusion, then Boyo was clinging to Shana´s lean form like a chimp to a trunk. He looked back meaningfully at Bucko and nodded, ¨You´re unfortunate.¨

The Kwah and the Aretp and winged insectoids were horsing around like schoolchildren overhead, complete barbarian games, yet the grounded races almost to a being envied them. Maybe the gift of flight would amount to nothing more than drink-tag, but it looked so fun!

¨I got ´em! I got ´em!¨ Lyla appeared from the throng with a bouncing grin, ¨I got enough for everybody. We all wanted two, right?¨

Bucko, feeling his skin just, just beginning to crawl, marvelled at Lyla´s perky grin, took a big slug of the bottle in his hand, ¨Well, sugar...I already took some, uh...stars, it was a green one...¨

¨Well just take one cluster then, ¨ Lyla pushed a vial into Bucko´s hand and, her pink hood a-flutter, disappeared back into the throng, calling something over her shoulder.

¨...which is why only the crawling reptilians can survive a Jump,¨ Bucko heard the practised, faux-interest of a tour guide shouting rather vaguely into the ever-crowding boulevard. He felt the effects of his green vial coming on pleasantly, a touch of out-of-body sensation, and popped the red one in his hands open, not exactly listening to but but unable to ignore the bellowing tour guide, ¨A little ironic since the Drazil actually produced the very first designs almost 600 years ago. The Tower itself was constructed in three portions in orbit around--¨

¨Mate,¨ Bucko snapped out of an unexpected haze. Someone had tapped him on the shoulder, but that didn´t matter. He went for another go at the bottle, but lifting it to his mouth he noticed that it had grown lips, teeth, and...good heavens, a tongue! A tongue reaching for him from within the bottleneck, dark maroon and swirling in the air.

¨Gaaa!¨ Bucko dropped the bottle and it smashed at his feet, the tongue lolling, the lips, now broken, grinning up at him.

¨Mate,¨ Bucko felt his shoulder being squeezed again, and saw Orin beside him, looking skeletal and seemingly growing scales, ¨Allright, mate?¨

¨Aaaah!¨ Bucko squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temples, ¨What were those green ones I bought? You were there, right?¨¨

¨Yeah, man,¨ Bucko could sense Orin leaning closer to him, ¨Psycodots. How many´d you take?¨

¨Stars!¨ Bucko rubbed his eyelids as colours became shapes, ¨I don´t know. A few.¨

Orin patted Bucko reassuringly on both shoulders, ¨Don´t worry, mate. It´s happened to me, too. Just don´t take that cluster and don´t drink anymore. We´ll get some ragaï, you´ll be fine. Allright?¨

Bucko kept his palms on his eyes, and Orin´s voice began taking on a guttural, alien texture.

¨Hey, man¨ Orin gave Bucko´s shoulders a light shake, ¨Allright? Are you gonna be allright?¨

Bucko nodded, or rather trembled without shaking his head.

¨Good, good,¨ Orin´s voice sounded totally inhuman to Bucko now but it matched nicely, at least rythmically, to the explosions and cascades of colour hypnotising him from the backs of his eyelids, ¨Because you´ve got trouble, mate.¨

¨Eh?¨ Bucko pulled his palms off his eyes but did not open them.

¨Don´t worry, don´t worry. You want to keep your eyes shut for now, that´s a good idea. Don´t worry....you can´t worry on psychodots or you´ll be in real trouble. So just take it easy, mate, take my arm here, we´ll find the rest of ´em. Don´t worry about the Enforcers following you.¨


* * *


Boyo had not stopped moving since they´d left the bar and hit the streets, now an impressive circus of life. In less than two hours the sidewalks around the Tower had gone from sleepy and nearly bleak to a thriving mob of innumerous shapes and sizes strolling, mostly, in a directionless ramble ´round the Tower. Boyo, along with his newfound friends, had taken his cluster vial, and a happy glow began to tint everything in sight.

¨Ooooo, there they are,¨ Shana extended her arm, finger pointing.

On a large balcony overlooking the sidewalk the Holy Jumpers were beginning their ceremonies. A very tall, surprisingly young-looking fellow dressed in a bright gold and silver gown held what looked like a miniature of the Jump Tower in his left hand and was speaking in what Boyo understood as gibberish.

¨What language is that, Hector?¨ Brith spoke in the slow, breathy fashion of the clustered.

¨No idea,¨ Hector sounded exhausted, ¨But I´m startin´ to cluster.¨

¨Aye, me too,¨ Felix loomed in an adventurous overcoat behind his diminutive friends Brith and Hector, ¨Let´s find somewhere to sit down, ay?¨

Their eyes began to search; simultaneously, their cluster vials were imparting the usual kaleidoscopic effect to their vision, and soon the little troupe was thoroughly confused. It became difficult to tell empty spaces from the occupied, woolly species from the feathered.

¨Stars!¨ Shana said loudly with a little stomp, ¨I´m gonna go and jump with ...with those people in the yellow costumes.¨

Boyo watched her hair pass by, several times, watched her blonde head and all its clustery doubles pushing through the crowd to the Holy Jumpers´ balcony, now seething with robes of gold and silver. He considered following her but quickly realised there was something about the gold-clad fanatics he really didn´t like. What was it? He wasn´t sure.

The first sensations began beneath their feet, accompanied by a low hum, and a great roar arose from the crowd, lingered, then receded to a giddy hubbub. The feeling reminded Boyo of riding near a ship´s engines. He heard his name being called, focused himself into useful vision, and followed the voice a mere twenty feet to where his friends had found a spot on a stoop.

¨You gotta remember to look up,¨ Brith sighed, practically prone on the steps.

Felix blew through his lips, ¨On clusters it won´t matter where you look. They´re strong, ay? Nice work, Lyla.¨

¨Lyla isn´t here, dimwit,¨ Hector began to laugh like a young animal, ¨She´s out in that party somewhere...corrupting the youth!¨

For some reason, they all found that hysterical, and then there were four yipping young animals. They laughed a long time, awkwardly long, and a more than a few beings in the crowd began laughing at them, which only fed the fire. They may well have laughed straight through the Jump had not Orin appeared with such clustery serious faces, leading Bucko by his shoulders like a blind man. Bucko´s hands were thrust into the pockets of his overalls, and anyone not on clusters would have noticed the bulges of clenched fists.

¨Whoa,¨ Felix toned down his laughing, but could not entirely stop, ¨What´s with you two? You look like you´ve seen your own ghost!¨

Bucko emitted sounds of terror.

Orin leaned toward Boyo and shook Bucko´s shoulders, ¨Enforcers are tailing your friend.¨

Bucko yelped, and Boyo burst into a renewed laughing fit.

Orin could not help but giggle along; Boyo´s teary face in mid guffaw in triplicate actually was comical ¨That´s what I told him. Heh-heh. Enforcers are powerless in Free space.¨

Bucko fell to his knees, rubbing his eyes again. His voice warbled, and was impossible to understand over Boyo´s cackling.

¨What´s he saying?¨ Brith sat up slowly, ¨What´s going on, Felix? The Tower´s really pulsing now, huh?¨

They all cocked their heads a moment, ignoring swirling vision, feeling the sensation of stand-still movement.

¨Yeah,¨ Felix nodded with a wide smile of contentment, ¨It´s going now. Whoa! Look at the Tower! It´s moving! Brith! Do you see it? Do you see it moving? Right there, right there, there she goes....awwww, nice.¨

Hector blinked up at it, ¨I think it´s falling.¨

Brith slapped him with the speed of a startled mouse and her mouth worked outrageously as it hissed, ¨Don´t you do that! Don´t even play. Positive! Positive!¨

Hector looked devastated and shocked by being stricken, nodded agreement, and proceeded to cower into the steps, holding one arm protectively over his forehead. Brith focused on Bucko kneeling on the sidewalk, quietly muttering, his hands pressed over his eyes, seemingly oblivious to the backsides, tails, wings, and various parts and appendages of the crowd knocking him about. Even the cluster´s effects could not make him appear anything short of miserable.

¨What happened to him?¨ she asked, looking lazily at Orin, ¨He take a...bad one, or something?¨

Orin, on the other hand, was smiles and endless starlight, giggling a little bit, still, ¨No, no. He just had too much. Took psychodots, too.¨

Bucko slowly dropped his hands from his face, determined to pull himself together. He was starting to feel embarassed.

¨And Enforcers are tailing him,¨ Orin said after a pause.

Boyo and Felix took up laughing again, and Bucko found himself coming to a moment of clarity. The displays of his inner eyes had calmed down, he drew a deep breath and wagged a finger where he thought Orin was standing, ¨Ahhh. Ha-ha! You got me, Orin, you sly lunar liar. I get your game. You heard I took the psychodots and you´ve been tryig to freak me out. Good one, good one. But you´ve forgotten...sly...that I´m from Rednilyc, ha-ha-ha, and we don´t let people get away with--¨

A tremendous shudder swept through the entire crowd, and the hum intensified to a much more encompassing sound, drowning out the end of Bucko´s declarations. Vision became noticably wavy even for those who´d ingested nothing, and the shudder advanced to a spinning sensation of the head and insides. Boyo took hold of a step and looked up, where the great gyroscope of the Tower was ablaze an almost fiery white, beautiful in segmented wave-vision. They began to feel like water was falling over them, not so much at first, but then as though they were sitting beneath a powerful waterfall, and the noise in the air grew more defined, unpleasant, like an insistent static.

Bucko opened his eyes. He saw Felix and Brith leaning back on steps before him and they, and the steps, and the building behind them were undulating madly. With a mix of fear and concern he watched them just a moment, their bodies rolling without movement, and turned away as he began to think they looked in pain. There was a brilliant sun set atop the Tower now, all vision warbled and blurred such that it appeared there was a strange gelatinous substance in the very air.

A great swelling filled them all. Boyo´s eyes were riveted on the Tower, which very quickly went from a soft glowing red through an electric blue to a sharp, slicing white. An unmistakable sucking sound filled their ears, the sky lit up hot exploding white, more brightly shining even than the Tower. Boyo felt himself floating, felt himself drifting into the tiniest of pieces, impossibly feeling the separate cells of his body, took a look at his hands, and was terrified to find them transluscent.

A booming clap like thunder, a feeling of release of pressure, a loud whooshing sound, and it was over. Humanoids and other delicate races blinked and rubbed their eyes, somewhat blinded. The sturdier whooped with exhiliration and began the celebratory toasts.

¨Wow!¨ Boyo looked around, feeling very lightheaded, ¨Wow.¨

¨It´s good, ay?¨¨ Felix thumped Boyo on the back, ¨That was crazy. I think I saw how it works.¨

¨What did you see?¨ Brith embraced Felix without realising.

¨The suns,¨ Felix pat her hair, ¨The suns...I only saw it for a second, but they were all...you know, rotating.¨

¨There weren´t suns,¨ Orin grinned, ¨You were clustered. Hey, how many of me do you see?¨

¨Go back to Earth, terraphrodite,¨ Felix chuckled, ¨Did we come out here to have fun or what, ay?¨

Brith buried her face in Felix´ chest, ¨I saw more than one, too. I thought I saw more behind them. Did you see that?¨

¨Hey-hey-hey!¨ Boyo bounced up from the stoops fast as a released spring, ¨Does anyone see Bucko? Stars!¨

Finding a person in a crowd of thousands has never been easy. When the seekers are reeling from molecular distortion and high on hallucinogens-plus the odds are decidedly not in their favour.

¨He was right here a minute ago,¨ Brith said softly, still tucked into Felix.

¨He´s not here now!¨ Boyo was getting ugly.

Orin let out a defeated-sounding descending ¨Nooooo...¨ and crumpled into a skinny, angular heap, his hand over his mouth, ¨They got him....they´re gone, and they got him.¨

¨Ah?!¨ Boyo whirled, fully ugly.

¨The bastards...¨ Orin´s voice was despair in all it´s purity, ¨We were all distracted...and they got him!¨

Topcat

Hey Ozzy,
I must be too used to Christian fiction. This one lost me. What type of world would something like this take place? the writing is good, just hard to comprehend.